Captain James Cook was a man of humble beginnings. He was born into a poor family in the early 18th century, and had to work as a farmhand when he was just a boy. But at the age of 15, he managed to get a job as a shopkeeper in a small town on the coast of Yorkshire, where he went on to become one of the most famous sailors of all time, Captain James Cook.
00:00:00.240Hello and welcome to this episode of Epochs where I'm going to be talking all about the life and times and adventures of Captain James Cook and I am joined by Luca Johnson. Luca, how are you?
00:00:19.440Really, really filled with adventure. I mean, I say that about lots of people, but this one sort of really is chock-a-block.
00:00:26.100And I think the thing that's most extraordinary about Cook's life and the scope of the adventure that he had is just the humble beginnings from which it started.
00:00:35.540Because he's one of those people that, if you'd have just looked at the circumstances into which he was born and you'd never have guessed that he could go on to lead just such an extraordinary life.
00:00:46.720Yeah, that is one of the first things to say about him. He wasn't sort of destined to be a captain or, as you say, in the 18th century,
00:00:54.140because his whole life is in the 18th century. You would have to be of a certain station in the world, right?
00:01:03.980A gentleman to dream of being an officer and a captain. And he wasn't really, was he?
00:01:08.400No, not at all. So his father had actually come down from Scotland, sort of in the wake of the Jacobite rebellions of the early 1700s to sort of look for better work prospects.
00:01:21.040And they'd settled up in North Yorkshire, where he'd met James's mother, Grace, and they got married.
00:01:30.080And James Cook, named after his father, was the second son. And he was born into a little village called Martin, which even now is it's just sort of nowadays.
00:01:41.680It's sort of just south of Middlesbrough and it's got about a few thousand people there even now.
00:01:47.460So it's not the most assuming place in the world. But and ostensibly it seems like he had a very good childhood, like he had a good, strong family.
00:01:59.340But when he was six, his father moved a little further to the south, to a place called Great Aiton, where he worked as a farmhand on the farm of a man called Sir Thomas Scotto.
00:02:14.440And eventually, even within his youngest years, it was very, I think, was one of those, you know, you just get those naturally really well behaved kids who just you can't help but like them.
00:02:31.300They just sort of a young little sweetheart in a way. It was very much like that to the point that Scotto, the owner of the farm, paid for him to go to school and to have sort of just a rudimentary.
00:02:44.440education, which even back then was a leg up in and of itself from such low beginnings.
00:02:51.920It's something to remember. We take it for granted in our world that everyone gets an education. It's weird.
00:02:57.800In fact, it's a problem. You're not allowed to not to go to school, right?
00:03:02.100Social services will come around saying, why haven't you sent your child to, you know, back in the 18th century, if you were poor, you don't get any schooling.
00:03:10.460Well, if your mum and dad are perhaps not literate, they don't take it upon themselves to teach you how to read and write or teach you numbers or anything or teach you how to swim or anything, you probably won't, might not get any instruction on anything.
00:03:25.240So, yeah, to be sort of, to be paid for, to go to school and get your letters, yeah, makes a real difference.
00:03:34.980Because, you know, without that, he certainly could never have been, never, have been an officer or anything like that.
00:03:41.820No, not at all. And, but his, his dad did very well out of it as well. His dad quickly went on to become chief farmhand because his dad had a very good work ethic.
00:03:51.300So it's very clear to see where the younger James got his from. And, but his dad, again, sort of always knew that he wanted more for his son than just working on the farm for his life.
00:04:05.300So he eventually managed to, when James got to about the age of 15, 16, I believe it was, his dad had it arranged for him that he would go to the nearby seaside town on the Yorkshire coastline of Stathes,
00:04:18.780where he would get an apprenticeship working as a shopkeeper with a man called William Sanderson.
00:04:26.900And so with nothing really more than a spare change of clothes and the bare essentials, Cook walked for two days on foot from Great Aiton to Stathes to this little seaside town where he set up as an apprentice shopkeeper.
00:04:44.040It's funny, it's another thing, isn't it, in the pre-modern world that I think people forget about.
00:04:47.680You've got to walk most places. I mean, it's obvious when you say it, there's no, obviously no motor vehicles, but you also think, oh, you probably get a horse or a wagon somewhere.
00:04:58.780No, most people, if you had no money, you walked.
00:08:07.180So it's just the whole concept, the whole part of the world that is involved in navies and seafaring is just very, very different in the 18th century, right?
00:08:21.500But really, the thing that sort of ends Cook's brief stint as a shopkeeper is one day a, and it's remarkable that we have this chronicled, but, you know, from letters and various resources and documents, we actually have a very vivid picture of his life.
00:08:41.540So we can get into those little details, but someone came into the shop one day and paid for something using an old South Sea shilling, which was obviously not, you know, a sort of native.
00:08:54.880It had come from, well, from the South Seas, obviously.
00:08:57.540So, and Cook was quite enamored with this coin.
00:09:00.620And so he took it out of the till and swapped it for another one so he could keep it himself.
00:09:05.540Um, but Sanderson sort of noticed that it was missing and accused him of stealing it.
00:09:11.600And despite Cook's protestations, it really soured the, uh, the working relationship between them.
00:09:17.680And so Cook asked to be, um, well, let go from his apprenticeship and for other arrangements to be made.
00:09:31.180So this is where Cook spends a huge chunk of his life.
00:09:35.640He spends about seven years, the next seven years from the ages of, of about, uh, 17 to about 25, all in Whitby.
00:09:44.820Now, Whitby is even now a really, really beautiful place.
00:09:49.800It's a place that when you go into the old town coming down from the North, as Cook would have done, walking from the States and going across the bridge,
00:09:59.280it's, you go into the old town and the old town there is a really, really beautiful place.
00:10:05.800And in fact, I was there only this Monday, just gone, um, doing some last minute research and stuff.
00:10:11.840But the, there's just to give people a flavor of it, there's like pie and mash shops in this old town and they have a banner, um, across the back of it that says we've been open through the reign of King Charles, the first King Charles, the second, and now King Charles, the third.
00:10:29.560So that's how proudly they wear their heritage and the longevity of the history.
00:10:35.540Uh, but within Whitby now as well is the Captain Cook Museum and the museum itself is the exact house that Cook lived in.
00:10:49.220It's, it's a really, it's actually really well presented and a really nice visit.
00:10:54.760Um, but this was the house of John Walker and John Walker was the, uh, well, he owned, um, uh, a whole sort of slew of merchant ships, sort of the, operated the, uh, the coal trade along the North Sea and down to London.
00:11:14.160And what's interesting to note about John Walker was he was, he and his family, they were all Quakers.
00:11:24.060Which, um, meant that when you went into his house, as it's sort of been redone to look like today, it's not the same walls, but it's been redone to look like it.
00:11:37.040Uh, Cook would have lived in a very simplistic environment because of their Quaker beliefs.
00:11:42.840There would have been no portraits on the wall.
00:11:45.340Uh, the furniture would have not been just whatever the latest fashion trend was.
00:11:49.580It would have been a very simplistic way of living, but with a very strong, uh, like Protestant work ethic on steroids, um, in many ways and Cook, uh, thrived on it.
00:13:04.400He wasn't a particularly, um, emotive man.
00:13:08.360He was, he wasn't humorous really in many ways.
00:13:11.160But what he was, was he was courageous and he was very, very, yeah, had an incredible work ethic and cared deeply about the people who he was, who were in his trust.
00:13:25.460Uh, that's something that will become apparent as, as time goes on in the story.
00:13:28.960But Mary Proud, the, uh, housekeeper, she noticed something distinctively brilliant about Cook and whilst all the apprentice, because he didn't, he went from being under the shopkeepers, um, stall to up in the attic with a whole host of other apprentices.
00:13:49.000Because there was a number of apprentices.
00:13:50.620And then if you got to the exam and you didn't, you know, if you failed it or you flunked it, then you were out.
00:13:56.520But until then you all got to stay in the attic and Mary Proud, the housekeeper gave Cook, uh, a candle and a table so he could actually just study at night and read and take things, things in, um, because she noticed that he had a particular passion for learning and knowledge and just, uh, self-improvement.
00:14:16.960So what was he doing particularly on ship in those, in that time?
00:14:30.180So he would have spent his time, uh, some of it would have been on land at the, the Naval college, the academy, learning the basic theoretical stuff.
00:14:39.820And learning all of the nautical language about what is a, what's a fathom, what's a, you know, what's a knot, you know, what does it mean to double a cape and all those sorts of things.
00:14:49.460And so you learn all of the, the whole language that comes around being a seafarer and then yes, on the actual ships themselves, he would have gotten the practical training and the Whitby, uh, colliers in particular, Whitby had been making ships ever since the reign of King Edward the first.
00:15:10.820So it's got a real proud sort of history as a shipwright and as a place that, you know, build ships, but in Cook's time, they would have been these, what they would have sort of been colloquially called the Whitby cats.
00:15:25.720And these were big, sturdy collier ships.
00:15:43.200And so Cook would have learnt all of the most basics about the rigging and how to man the rigging and how to, um, uh, and taking command and, well, not taking command, but he'd have learnt from his, John Walker, who he went out with on many occasion.
00:16:00.080And John, again, like so many other people before him, noticed something particularly, uh, brilliant about Cook.
00:16:07.300And he just always stood out with a lot that he did.
00:16:12.040Um, but eventually after a few years, he passed his examinations.
00:16:16.080And from then on, it became a matter of sailing his own ship.
00:16:21.560I think there was one called, uh, the Free Love, uh, and another one called the Friendship, aptly named.
00:16:29.180Um, and so he sailed ships such as those, these Whitby cats down to London, down through the Thames towards Wapping and Deptford and those sorts of places, um, to transport all of the coal that was required in London around that time.
00:16:45.420Um, for, uh, you know, fires and just, you know, the basic sort of things.
00:16:49.140And we're sort of in very, very early industrial revolution as well.
00:16:53.240So, but in expansion to all of that as well, Cook also went further afield.
00:16:59.420And as I said, it was the North Sea coal trade.
00:17:02.640So Cook would have got experience by sailing to places such as Copenhagen and Malmo and Stockholm and Danzig and all these places sort of along the northern coastline of Europe as well.
00:17:23.940It's not like a transatlantic or trans-Pacific voyage, but there's pretty serious seas, the North Sea.
00:17:32.140Um, if you can hack the North Sea between the North of England and Scandinavia, you'll probably be able to handle most seas.
00:17:40.540I mean, there's some in the, in the South Seas that are probably worse, but still, um, yeah, it's, it's like, it's much harsher than say the Mediterranean or something.
00:17:57.620Um, already something like coal or Coke or something or various things were absolutely vital that somewhere like London would be sort of endlessly thirsty for coal.
00:18:09.180Um, uh, and so, yeah, sort of a vital trade.
00:18:13.660Um, I'd love to go to Whitby, not just for the Captain Cook Museum, of course I would visit.